And so Holy week begins, and I look at how much I have to do this year when we've got a vicar, and wonder quite how I survived last year. Palm Sunday starts a little earlier than a usual Sunday with an ecumenical service and procession from the Manor House corner of Finsbury Park. We actually gathered at church a little earlier still in order to vest, get the thurible going, and collect the absolutely enormous palm branches that the vicar had, ahem, liberated, from the garden of the flats across the road*. The service, as usual, was slightly chaotic, but good fun - there's a donkey which the smaller children can have rides on, and lots of singing, and I think there's a lot to be said for worshiping so visibly and publically once in a while. After Mass we had another rehearsal for St John's Singers, and it definitely felt as though the mix suddenly clicked and we all felt ready for the services later in the week when we'd be singing to an audience.
That afternoon I dyed![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obandsoller's hair again - he's been working his way through the colour wheel, and this time it was yellow. We were both a little unsure how much we'd like the result, but I was really really pleased with how it came out - really striking and with a metallic sheen, so you could almost believe it was made of gold. Ramesh took a little longer to be convinced, but I think he's coming around now. In the evening we had our House Date night, but Ramesh had started to flag, so it ended up being just me and robert_jones playing the Game of Thrones card game, which I'd been given as a "Thank you for organising Thronescamp" gift. As it turns out, they recommend you learn the game with two players, and only graduate to three or four later, so that worked out quite well. We played the game a couple of times, using the 'basic' Stark vs Lannister set of cards, and won one game each (in both cases the Starks beat the Lannisters). It did take us a while to pick up the rules - by the end of the second game we were still occasionally going "oh, hang on, I forgot to do that things I was supposed to do in the last phase", but we mostly had the hang of it. There are different configurations of cards, so I'll be interested to see how that changes the dynamic as we play more.
I was staying in London for pretty much all of Holy and Easter Weeks, a mixture of time off and working from home. (Have I mentioned how much I love having a contract where I'm paid on the basis of deliverables, so I can mix up work and personal stuff in an entirely flexible and guilt-free way!) I got quite a lot of personal and church admin done, and am even, dare I say it, mostly on top of everything that isn't wedding planning. Throughout the week I had quite a lot of errands and appointments around the city, and found that in most cases I could get to them a bit quicker by running than by using public transport, which is great, because it lets me get a goodly number of miles in, without me having to take up any extra time specifically to exercise.
On Monday morning I was back at the ADHD clinic for a medication review, where my dose was increased. Since then the theraputic effect does seem to have increased. I think it's now reasonably close to what I'm used to getting from the Modafinil, maybe very slightly less. I'm also seeing some mild side-effects - some tension in my jaw, some mild anxiety, and I think my sleep has been slightly affected. It's a bit difficult to judge though, because it's been a fairly atypical couple of weeks in terms of external factors affecting sleep and stress levels, so I'm quite glad that I've got another couple of weeks to observe before the next review.
In the afternoonsmhwpf came over and we finished off handing over the bulk of the treasurer responsibilities, including the physical files. Whilst he was there I got a rather unexpected phonecall, and the poor chap had to cope with some slightly undignified high-pitched squealing once I got off the phone. After an unbelievable amount of faff and delays and administrative cock-ups, I had been led me to believe that I would be waiting until around October/November for the surgery that I've been trying to arrange for nearly the last three years. So you can imagine my delight when I got offered a date on the 19th May! Obviously this then led to a certain amount of turning my life upside down and rearranging plans, but for the most part people have been very accomodating, with the notable exception of Virgin Sport, who wouldn't let me defer my entry to the Hackney Half because I was one day past the deadline for doing so. All things considered though, I'm not going to complain too much! I ended the day with a said Mass at St John's, and a quiet evening in.
On Tuesday I had a dinner engagement which meant that I needed an earlier Mass than the St John's one, so I went to St Philip the Apostle, South Tottenham. Despite his unfortunate traditionalist leanings, the vicar there is a friend of Mthr Alice, and for Reasons(tm) we share printing facilities with them, so I've met him a couple of times, and we had a nice chat before Mass. The service was Roman Rite, which I've not done for a while, and enjoyed. I was also very taken with his Lent vestments, which were just about purple, but under so much thread-of-gold one could be forgiven for thinking that Easter had already arrived.
Then it was on to dinner withthemidnightgirl at Cornerstone, a fairly new restaurant in Hackney. This was another meal which, although almost entirely fish, would be hard to describe as Lenten. We started raw and pickled oysters - the pickled ones were good, but the oyster itself was slightly overpowered; the raw ones were perfect. Then brill tatare, which unusually for a raw fish dish had neither citrus nor vinegar, but instead an egg yolk dressing. It was rich and unctuous, and a perfect counterpoint to our other cold dish of cured gunard with grapes and sherry vinegar.
For hot dishes we had curried mussels, which I'd been slightly and unfairly sceptical about. They were real comfort food, with a definite nod to fish & chip shop curry sauce, but executed with a lightness of touch that meant the freshness of the mussels still took centre stage. Another comforting dish was the crab crumpet which managed that wonderful achievement of feeling innovative and something I'd never have thought to try, but also within the realms of something I could recreate at home. The crumpet was as light as you can get whilst still being definitely a crumpet, topped with a layer of shredded white crab meat, and then completed with a rarebit layer, sharp cheddar and worcester sauce bringing all the umami you could ask for. For our final main dish, we had cod with french onion and chilli. This was more traditional fancy fine-dining sort of food and it was divine. A generous portion of perfectly cooked flakey white fish, a sauce that was rich but not cloying, and the chilli, which again, I'd been wary of being overpowering, surprisingly subtle at first, but adding a lovely piquancy and length. We finished with blue cheese and honeycake, which I thought just about didn't count as a pudding. That may have been cheating slightly, but I'm sure God will forgive me. It was a seriously generous portion of cheese, even for two people as good at eat as we are, and the cake was sticky-sweet and rich and moist and the two worked wonderfully together. At about £160 for two including a couple of beers and soft drinks it wasn't exactly cheap, but given the quality it was certainly good value.
Wednesday was another very busy day. I started with a meeting with my confessor, who as ever, gave me some very wise counsel and left me feeling lighter than air. After that I joinedobandsoller for a wedding breakfast tasting, which was a lot of fun, although I was quite glad to have run ten miles and not eaten anything earlier in the day, because there was a lot of food! I was expecting small portions, but we actually had 6 canapes each, then three starters, four mains, and two puddings to eat between us. And several of them weren't vegetarian, so I had considerably more than my fair share (except the puddings, where I allowed myself a taste because not doing would defeat the point, but otherwise stuck to my fasting.) I'm not going to talk too much about the food, because that would spoil the surprise, but we're pretty happy with the things we've chosen.
In the evening I went to All Saint's Margaret Street for Mass and Tenabrae. As one comes to expect from ASMS, the music was beautiful, and the service was tragic and haunting and everything Tenabrae should be. It's got me thinking entirely unhelpful thoughts about how we could hold it at St John's, but realistically, even if we pared it down and simplified it as much as possible, we're not going to have the musical capacity any time soon.
Thursday started much earlier than I would have liked, waking around six, a good couple of hours before my alarm. I got a few useful things done, then went to the dentist for a check-up at which all was fine. In the afternoon I had the second session of the ADHD group, where we talked about strategies for dealing with disorganisation and focus and procrastiation and time-management. Again, there wasn't much in the way of new material for me, but the relief of being around people who had similar struggles was still very much there, and I think also I managed to say things which were helpful to them, which made it feel good and worthwhile. Then home with just time for a quick shower and private musical rehearsal before setting off to church ready to enter into the Triduum.
*she tried quite hard to get permission, and no-one told her "No", she just didn't manage to find anyone who could give her an authoritative "Yes". But the tree had loads of branches, so I'm sure no-one would begrudge us just two.
That afternoon I dyed
obandsoller's hair again - he's been working his way through the colour wheel, and this time it was yellow. We were both a little unsure how much we'd like the result, but I was really really pleased with how it came out - really striking and with a metallic sheen, so you could almost believe it was made of gold. Ramesh took a little longer to be convinced, but I think he's coming around now. In the evening we had our House Date night, but Ramesh had started to flag, so it ended up being just me and robert_jones playing the Game of Thrones card game, which I'd been given as a "Thank you for organising Thronescamp" gift. As it turns out, they recommend you learn the game with two players, and only graduate to three or four later, so that worked out quite well. We played the game a couple of times, using the 'basic' Stark vs Lannister set of cards, and won one game each (in both cases the Starks beat the Lannisters). It did take us a while to pick up the rules - by the end of the second game we were still occasionally going "oh, hang on, I forgot to do that things I was supposed to do in the last phase", but we mostly had the hang of it. There are different configurations of cards, so I'll be interested to see how that changes the dynamic as we play more.I was staying in London for pretty much all of Holy and Easter Weeks, a mixture of time off and working from home. (Have I mentioned how much I love having a contract where I'm paid on the basis of deliverables, so I can mix up work and personal stuff in an entirely flexible and guilt-free way!) I got quite a lot of personal and church admin done, and am even, dare I say it, mostly on top of everything that isn't wedding planning. Throughout the week I had quite a lot of errands and appointments around the city, and found that in most cases I could get to them a bit quicker by running than by using public transport, which is great, because it lets me get a goodly number of miles in, without me having to take up any extra time specifically to exercise.
On Monday morning I was back at the ADHD clinic for a medication review, where my dose was increased. Since then the theraputic effect does seem to have increased. I think it's now reasonably close to what I'm used to getting from the Modafinil, maybe very slightly less. I'm also seeing some mild side-effects - some tension in my jaw, some mild anxiety, and I think my sleep has been slightly affected. It's a bit difficult to judge though, because it's been a fairly atypical couple of weeks in terms of external factors affecting sleep and stress levels, so I'm quite glad that I've got another couple of weeks to observe before the next review.
In the afternoon
smhwpf came over and we finished off handing over the bulk of the treasurer responsibilities, including the physical files. Whilst he was there I got a rather unexpected phonecall, and the poor chap had to cope with some slightly undignified high-pitched squealing once I got off the phone. After an unbelievable amount of faff and delays and administrative cock-ups, I had been led me to believe that I would be waiting until around October/November for the surgery that I've been trying to arrange for nearly the last three years. So you can imagine my delight when I got offered a date on the 19th May! Obviously this then led to a certain amount of turning my life upside down and rearranging plans, but for the most part people have been very accomodating, with the notable exception of Virgin Sport, who wouldn't let me defer my entry to the Hackney Half because I was one day past the deadline for doing so. All things considered though, I'm not going to complain too much! I ended the day with a said Mass at St John's, and a quiet evening in.On Tuesday I had a dinner engagement which meant that I needed an earlier Mass than the St John's one, so I went to St Philip the Apostle, South Tottenham. Despite his unfortunate traditionalist leanings, the vicar there is a friend of Mthr Alice, and for Reasons(tm) we share printing facilities with them, so I've met him a couple of times, and we had a nice chat before Mass. The service was Roman Rite, which I've not done for a while, and enjoyed. I was also very taken with his Lent vestments, which were just about purple, but under so much thread-of-gold one could be forgiven for thinking that Easter had already arrived.
Then it was on to dinner with
themidnightgirl at Cornerstone, a fairly new restaurant in Hackney. This was another meal which, although almost entirely fish, would be hard to describe as Lenten. We started raw and pickled oysters - the pickled ones were good, but the oyster itself was slightly overpowered; the raw ones were perfect. Then brill tatare, which unusually for a raw fish dish had neither citrus nor vinegar, but instead an egg yolk dressing. It was rich and unctuous, and a perfect counterpoint to our other cold dish of cured gunard with grapes and sherry vinegar. For hot dishes we had curried mussels, which I'd been slightly and unfairly sceptical about. They were real comfort food, with a definite nod to fish & chip shop curry sauce, but executed with a lightness of touch that meant the freshness of the mussels still took centre stage. Another comforting dish was the crab crumpet which managed that wonderful achievement of feeling innovative and something I'd never have thought to try, but also within the realms of something I could recreate at home. The crumpet was as light as you can get whilst still being definitely a crumpet, topped with a layer of shredded white crab meat, and then completed with a rarebit layer, sharp cheddar and worcester sauce bringing all the umami you could ask for. For our final main dish, we had cod with french onion and chilli. This was more traditional fancy fine-dining sort of food and it was divine. A generous portion of perfectly cooked flakey white fish, a sauce that was rich but not cloying, and the chilli, which again, I'd been wary of being overpowering, surprisingly subtle at first, but adding a lovely piquancy and length. We finished with blue cheese and honeycake, which I thought just about didn't count as a pudding. That may have been cheating slightly, but I'm sure God will forgive me. It was a seriously generous portion of cheese, even for two people as good at eat as we are, and the cake was sticky-sweet and rich and moist and the two worked wonderfully together. At about £160 for two including a couple of beers and soft drinks it wasn't exactly cheap, but given the quality it was certainly good value.
Wednesday was another very busy day. I started with a meeting with my confessor, who as ever, gave me some very wise counsel and left me feeling lighter than air. After that I joined
obandsoller for a wedding breakfast tasting, which was a lot of fun, although I was quite glad to have run ten miles and not eaten anything earlier in the day, because there was a lot of food! I was expecting small portions, but we actually had 6 canapes each, then three starters, four mains, and two puddings to eat between us. And several of them weren't vegetarian, so I had considerably more than my fair share (except the puddings, where I allowed myself a taste because not doing would defeat the point, but otherwise stuck to my fasting.) I'm not going to talk too much about the food, because that would spoil the surprise, but we're pretty happy with the things we've chosen.In the evening I went to All Saint's Margaret Street for Mass and Tenabrae. As one comes to expect from ASMS, the music was beautiful, and the service was tragic and haunting and everything Tenabrae should be. It's got me thinking entirely unhelpful thoughts about how we could hold it at St John's, but realistically, even if we pared it down and simplified it as much as possible, we're not going to have the musical capacity any time soon.
Thursday started much earlier than I would have liked, waking around six, a good couple of hours before my alarm. I got a few useful things done, then went to the dentist for a check-up at which all was fine. In the afternoon I had the second session of the ADHD group, where we talked about strategies for dealing with disorganisation and focus and procrastiation and time-management. Again, there wasn't much in the way of new material for me, but the relief of being around people who had similar struggles was still very much there, and I think also I managed to say things which were helpful to them, which made it feel good and worthwhile. Then home with just time for a quick shower and private musical rehearsal before setting off to church ready to enter into the Triduum.
*she tried quite hard to get permission, and no-one told her "No", she just didn't manage to find anyone who could give her an authoritative "Yes". But the tree had loads of branches, so I'm sure no-one would begrudge us just two.
